Chapter Text
Goro promised himself he would never visit again. There was too much to lose, too little to gain, and surely he’d crack upon seeing those familiar rusted gates again. But regardless of all his reservations, he came, a pale, shivering child in his arms, because he couldn’t help but come to the one place he knows can help her.
The front lawn is neater than he last remembers it—more immaculate. Renovations take the place of the slightly sunken-in roof, the creaky wooden door, the peeling wall paint that once comprised the shabby institution. It’s hardly recognizable at all, and Goro wonders whether to be disappointed or grateful for it.
Denying himself the opportunity to decide, he enters the building with thinned lips and hunched shoulders, arms huddled protectively over Chiyo.
The inside is not the same, either—of course not, not after ten years. But something in his stomach roils, even as he sits at the waiting area and closes his eyes, counts to ten in his head.
He takes deep breaths. Chiyo squirms in his arms. She’s not as cold as before, courtesy to Goro’s sweater, though her limbs jolt every now and then, a whimper escaping her mouth with each movement. Goro remembers the state he found her in just a few hours earlier in the corner of that alleyway. His chest stirs with ill-contained anger.
“Everything will be okay,” he says, although he’s not sure how much of it she can hear. Perhaps he’s telling it to himself, not her. She had been nothing but a heavy weight on his conscience since the moment he picked her from the ground and rushed her to the nearest child-care institution (his own), and as soon as she’s in the arms of a professional, he can slip away quietly and never worry about her again. There is no room for him to, after all.
Minutes later, a woman around his age catches his attention. He is led to a private area where there are no noisy children, no memories of fussy caretakers or bland bentos. He restrains a relieved sigh at the unfamiliar walls, lacking in everything he once knew. He must have never visited this room as a kid.
“It’s nice to meet you,” says the woman, tapping her pen repeatedly against her clipboard. “I’m one of the nurses here. Mari Chisaka. And you?”
“Goro Akechi,” he says, and takes a seat. Chiyo is not roused at all.
The nurse is watching him with interest, but not familiarity—odd, coming from someone who should recognize his name, and if not his name, then perhaps his face. But five years of hard work (hard work consisting of no work) have ensured the erasure of his public identity, and the lack of recognition in her features causes relief and dread to balloon simultaneously in his chest.
“Goro Akechi, huh? Have you considered taking her to the doctor at all?”
“Not at all. I’m sorry. I panicked.” Truthfully, he hadn't wanted to, as thinking of stepping foot in a hospital left a chill crawling up his spine.
“You’re lucky we have a medical staff on-site, then. May I ask you a few questions instead?” Mari inquires, and Goro acquiesces.
The registration process crawls on for hours. Goro knows nothing about this girl aside from the fact that she was tossed aside, on the verge of frostbite. And that her name is Chiyo, though it took several long minutes of coaxing to wriggle that piece of information out of her.
Aside from that, he relies purely on deduction. Chiyo must be in pre-school, though however old she is, she could very well pass off as a one-year old given her constitution. He found her in Shinjuku, suggesting that her parents could have been involved in sex work, or with selling drugs. Either way, it must have been a deplorable pursuit.
While she was in their custody, she was abused often (if the ring of bruises on her back are any indication), most likely manipulated, maybe even exploited (for he remembers the fear, the rage, the indignation that flooded his being when he found her malnourished, as skittish as a baby deer, nothing but fear in her eyes at everything she looked—and the chain on her neck—)
He has to bite down on his tongue to stymie the anger that rises at the thought.
He promptly ends the interrogation there and walks with Chiyo, asleep in his embrace, to the health office, where she’ll be resting for the time being. He hardly listens to a word they say. Why should he, when this is the last he’ll see of Chiyo again? He leaves his number with them just to humor them, and departs as soon as he has the chance. He doesn’t look back because he fears if he does, he’ll go running back in, get himself in trouble again.
Not a day later, he receives a call from the institution.
“She’s insatiable,” says Mari on the other side, over the sounds of crying and some hissed instructions from a nurse. “She says she wants to see you.”
Goro isn’t sure why that makes his gut twist. He answers, “I’m sure she’ll be fine without me. Give it another day. I imagine she’s simply unfamiliar with her new environment.” And they do as he says.
The next morning, they call him again. Giving him the same excuses, the same desperate pleas. Even with a full night’s sleep, they say, she refuses to eat her breakfast and constantly asks for you, wondering why you left her. Goro’s stomach turns even further, as if curling in on itself. His fingers grip the phone tight.
“I’ll see what this is about.” With that, he hangs up on them and grabs his coat.
Chiyo is dozing off when he arrives at the health office, windswept hair and all, face flushed and nerves overwrought. He pulls up a chair beside her bed, observing her quietly. He resists the urge to touch. His hands, after all, have long been associated with acts of violence.
Why should he care about this child? He has far more important matters to be dealing with, such as scraping up money for rent. Surely, the institution could have managed without him. Chiyo would have forgotten him in time. Just like everyone else. Everything would go back to normal, because it always did, and that’s exactly what he counts on to happen.
But despite his logic, his mind strays. And all he can think about is whether or not Chiyo is warm enough in those blankets.
She wakes at around noon, her weary eyes drifting in his direction, fixing on him curiously. She blinks, once or twice. His breath catches in his throat.
“Ah,” is all she says. They stare at each other for a few more minutes before Goro reaches behind him, procuring the tray of food the nurse brought in earlier, still piping hot. She allows herself to be fed by him even though she won’t let him within three feet of herself for more than ten seconds at a time, and that’s… more trust than Goro is used to receiving, and a lump forms in his throat at this. Behind him, the nurses watch in awe.
“Could you come back the next day?” one of them asks hopefully, and Goro can do little else but nod.
The Asakawa Child Care Institution was never ideal. Goro wasn’t fit for it, either. Prone to tantrums, a lone wolf of sorts, despising every company that was offered to him. Foster care had been a wash, and the institution was powerless to help him; the least they could do was nurture him to adolescence. He supposes it’s cruel, placing Chiyo in the very same system that failed him and put a brand on his name. Perhaps that’s why he keeps checking in on her. He can’t very well raise her on his own, and as lacking as he is in connections…
… No. They don’t count. He had never entertained reaching out to them again, and he sure as hell isn’t going to start now, not when they think he’s dead. He got enough help from them as a teenager.
“You don’t like the peas?” Goro says during mealtime, scrunching up his nose. Chiyo does the same, sticking her tongue out at it. He’s practically become one of the institution’s staff members by now, and he laments how easily he had been roped into it. He sighs and tucks the peas to the other side of the plate. Picky children are the worst, but…
Chiyo is…
Well. Either way, she couldn’t afford to be picky under her parents, so Goro allows her the privilege of making choices. Discovering likes, uncovering dislikes.
It’s hard to tell what she likes, regrettably. She rarely talks, and her face is immobile half the time, as if scared to make any indication of her emotions. Goro savors what few facial expressions she allows to slip through, such as now, the clear disdain for the peas etched onto her face. It gives him something to work with. A sign of success on his part.
That being said, he’s no idiot. He catalogues every one of her reactions for future reference, because failure is not an option. Children are a force to be reckoned with; he remembers the last time he drove Chiyo to tears because of a misplaced stuffed toy. He keeps it within reach everyday now.
He never misses the upward slant of her lips when he sneaks her some candy, the eager widening of her eyes when he reads his favorite novels to her, the furrowed brow at each of his pensive silences, either. Because of that, he forces himself to think less around her.
It’s a week into his visits when Mari approaches him, wearing a sunny smile that forecasts good news. “Chiyo-chan is almost fully stable,” she says, and while it’s cheerful, Goro is anything but. “We expect that she’ll be able to live with the other children soon. Maybe she’ll even be assigned to a loving foster home in time! But, ah, thank you for helping us, Akechi-san. You’ve been very…”
“No problem,” Goro cuts in, not liking the dryness of his tongue. There’s a protest budding in there somewhere, but he gives it no time to mature, gritting out, “It's my pleasure.”
The institution says he can leave, so he does. He gives himself two days of distance before making any reckless decisions.
On day two, he comes to a conclusion.
At the doorstep of the Asakawa Child Care Institution, Mari welcomes him with open arms, glad for an extra pair of hands. Chiyo is not sociable, as Goro expected, and hasn’t been adjusting well to her environment, so “it would be really nice, you know, if you could help her connect with the other children, et cetera, et cetera”.
Children. Ugh. When did Goro get so involved with children?
Nevertheless, he’s an unemployed twenty-something-year-old man with nothing better to do but solve sudoku puzzles at midnight in his bedroom, so what’s the harm? He enters the building and seeks Chiyo out, finding her huddled in the corner of the playroom with eyes alight and stance cautious. “All right, up you go,” Goro mutters, lifting Chiyo easily and dragging her to the center of the room. She barely resists, though her shoulders are tense and nervous.
God, he has no idea what he’s doing. As soon as he plops her down on the jigsaw puzzle mat, all the research he has ever conducted (in the nurse’s office, on his phone while Chiyo took her daily naps, or at his apartment over a cup of instant ramen) flees from his skull.
“What do you want to do?” he asks her instead, because that’s the best he has.
Chiyo shrugs.
Sighing through his nose, Goro sits cross-legged beside her and looks her in the eyes, all sobriety and inquisitiveness—a tactic known only to work on his clients when probing them for information. Chiyo is not affected by it. In fact, she meets his gaze with a serious look of her own, startling him out of his concentration.
Okay then.
“Would you like to play games with the other kids?” he questions, to which she answers with a frown. He starts up again, “Watch television?” And she shakes her head vigorously.
She almost reminds him of his younger self, and by that logic…
“Very well.” He sighs, leaning back slightly, and Chiyo has free reign. As if encouraged by his presence, she starts to toddle around, almost entirely uninterested in the corner she had once been hibernating in. Her curiosity has won her over.
Goro follows Chiyo around as her tiny hands prey on every little object she can find. Her first victims include the bead mazes and interactive picture books, though she quickly deems them insignificant and abandons them on the carpet. When peeking through all the open doors of the institution and standing in the middle of the kitchen aren’t enough, Chiyo turns to him instead. Tugging at his gloves, running her hands through his long, silky hair.
“What are you doing?” he inquires, with no success. She reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a notebook—the one he once used for cases, but now uses for Chiyo. Her stubby fingers flip through the pages idly.
“You won’t find anything interesting there.” Regardless, she continues to squint at the words, not that she’ll ever be able to decipher them anyway. The fact that this is a point of interest at all to her boggles his mind.
He reaches for the notebook, grumbling, “It’s not that important…”
Someone taps his shoulder, then, and Goro turns around.
“Are you Akechi-san?” One of the nurses meets his gaze, and when Goro looks to the right of her, he sees a couple more standing behind her. He gives a slow nod.
“Yes, that would be me. Did you need something?”
“I’m sorry, I just—” The nurse glances pointedly at Chiyo. “We haven’t seen anyone able to interact with Chiyo so closely. It’s remarkable. How do you do it?”
For a long, agonizing moment, Goro simply stares. “There’s not much to learn,” he says at last. It’s not like he he knows why Chiyo likes him, either. But he’s not unused to scrutiny, and he smiles one of his princely smiles when he says, “Would you like to stay and keep us company, though?”
And the nurses stay, because they can. They take advantage of his polite, unthinking mouth, fawn over him and fawn over Chiyo, and eventually, a number of other children come over to stay, too, playing with whatever Goro has to offer. Goro sighs and lets it happen because if he bores them enough, maybe they’ll go away. Maybe they’ll see it’s not worth it.
But the day ends with three children hanging off of his legs, and in his arms lies a sleepy Chiyo, worn out from social interaction. He tucks her in with the flimsy institution blanket and stares at her face for a minute before rising from his chair and shuffling away, leaving his jacket over Chiyo’s shoulders.
Goro’s not sure why he’s here.
He must have asked himself the same question twenty times since he met Chiyo, but now, he’s not at the institution. The department store he’s at boasts an array of colorful toys, colorful clothes, and Goro curses under his breath as he realizes he doesn’t have enough money to afford half of these things. But it’s just as well; he’ll at least be able to contribute in some way, and that’s better than if he did nothing at all.
All because some nurse offhandedly suggested they were running low on supplies. How pitiful. And now he’s going to be providing for them, poor, jobless him, when he can’t even afford to go eat out more than once a week.
… Well. It’s the least he could do, he supposes, for imposing Chiyo onto them. He tells himself as much as he begins checking items off the shopping list, adding a couple things he thinks Chiyo will like—things like books, jelly candies, scarves…
His wallet is dry by the time he’s done shopping, and he carries maybe five heavyweight bags to the train station en route to the institution. Mari and the other nurses (whose names he is slowly learning—Himeko, Ran, Nagisa, Azuma…) help him bring them in, unpack them, store them, until all the bags are emptied and put away.
The kids are ecstatic with the new toys. Chiyo, especially. She sits on Goro’s lap for hours playing on a child-sized keyboard, enamored with its dulcet melodies, the chunky keys that play note after note until Goro’s ears go numb. The nurses make them a lavish dinner later that evening, a meal so rich and fulfilling that Goro is left in a coma for an hour, and nothing has ever felt this good, not at this institution. Not until now.
At least the children are happy, Goro thinks. Happy, unlike himself, when this place was just an old office building run by old women with no money, no strength, and children were being picked up and thrown back in at alarming speeds, the government not caring enough to do anything about it, and Goro learned what it meant to buy conbini meals with money left on the table, how it felt to attend every school event alone. Goro takes comfort in the fact that they have what they have now. Things aren’t perfect, of course, but, well. They’re working out. And that has to count for something.
“Thank you,” Mari tells him later, in the privacy of the staff lounge where only Chiyo is around to hear their whispers. “You didn’t have to do this for us.”
“I have to pay you all back somehow.” Goro smiles, but he doesn’t believe a word that leaves his mouth. Mari smiles back though, touches his shoulder, and that erases all doubt from his mind.
“You’re a good person, Akechi-san.”
Goro frowns and shakes his head, as if he can rid the notion from his mind. “This is nothing, I assure you.” He pauses thoughtfully. “You know, Mari-san, I used to live in this institution as a child.”
“Really?” Mari’s eyes widen at that.
“Yes. I hated it here. It wasn’t half as good as it is now, unfortunately.” He glances down at Chiyo, brushing the hair out of her eyes, some of his own falling over his face. “I resented the idea of coming back. But I had nowhere else to turn. I had no idea how to care for Chiyo, and there was no one I could trust to do it for me. In retrospect, though, I am thankful. Thankful that things seemed to have changed for the better. You know, in other institutions—”
His breath catches, and Mari watches him, her brows knitted with concern. He musters up the willpower to speak again. “It isn’t this way, in other institutions.”
“I know, Akechi-san.”
“I was scared, actually—that Asakawa hadn't changed from before—”
“It’s okay,” Mari soothes, rubbing his upper back, and he flinches at the contact. If she notices how he draws away, hunches his shoulders on reflex, she doesn’t say anything.
“… Akechi-san,” she says after a moment, smile fragile. “We’ve been working really, really hard to use what little freedom we have to make things better for the children. It doesn’t mean I can stop terrible things from happening every now and then, but with a little effort—and the right people to help me, then—then I think it’s possible to change the situation. No matter how impossible the feat seems at first. Don’t you think?”
Goro stares right back at her, eyes narrowed, posture stiff.
“I don’t know.” He relaxes his hold on Chiyo. “I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Chiyo whines into his shoulder, then, squirming around and slicking her drool against the skin of Goro’s neck, and Goro laughs and says, “Ah. I think it’s time for me to tuck her in.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be right here.” Mari inclines her head, examining Goro with a curious eye. “You know, you claim to be bad with children, but with all that’s happened the past week… I think you know what you’re doing. Don’t you?”
“Ah, do I?” He chuckles incredulously, but Mari waves this off.
“No, I mean it. The children take to you so well. Normally we’re unable to keep them in one place, especially since our last volunteer had to leave the other day for work, but you—you have a presence. And the children listen to you.”
He doesn't know why his stomach coils at that. But, he takes it in stride, smiling and saying, “Thank you, Mari-san.” He adjusts Chiyo in his arms. “Say, I haven’t seen this other volunteer before. The extra help is sorely needed, and it is a little rude to leave the day I arrive.”
“I agree,” Mari murmurs, folding her arms across her chest. “He’s not busy on the weekends, though. Perhaps you will get to meet him then?”
Some of the children are gone when Goro returns, Nagisa explaining that they’ve found foster homes for them—that it’s necessary, because the large numbers are starting to press on the institution’s shoulders, and it’s better this way, anyway. Goro doesn’t know what to say to that. He knows, realistically, he can’t do any more to help these children than help around the building once in a while, but the knowledge still stings.
To think that any of these children are at risk, that they may very well be heading for their doom at their foster homes—
They remind him all too much of himself.
Not the one currently wreaking havoc at the drawing station, though. Nor the one he’s trying to stop from putting crayons into her mouth, or the one that doesn’t know that reading books does not consist of tearing pages out and eating them. Goro plucks the third slimy page of the day out of a child’s mouth and thinks, ugh, children.
“We’re replacing this book,” he says to the air, and pulls it out of arm’s reach. He’s placing it safely on a high shelf when someone tugs on the cuff of his dress pants.
Big eyes look back up at him. “I want food.”
“I don’t know how to cook,” he answers smoothly, which is not true. He can cook rice. Eggs, too. Grilled cheese, probably.
“Snacks?” the boy continues, and Goro sighs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of konpeito—by now he has learned to keep them on hand—and the boy thanks him, toddling off to who knows where. Goro doesn’t trust him to take care of himself, so he follows him until they’ve both reached the TV room and the boy is seating himself on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Goro asks, watching him open the bag of konpeito and throw some in his mouth. The boy glances at him.
“Puzzles.”
On the screen, a game of Sokoban that’s already touched plays, though it doesn’t seem like the boy had done much but move around the boxes ineffectually (for his own amusement, maybe). Against his better judgement, Goro picks up the controller and sits down next to him.
“Do you know how to play this game?” Goro asks. The boy shakes his head, and Goro scoots closer. “Well, the objective of the game is to move the crates to those points marked on the board until all of them are covered. It’s really difficult, you see.”
“I want to try,” says the boy, but Goro holds up a finger.
“Ah, watch me first.”
The boy watches, mesmerized, as Goro taps along the game until all the crates have been moved, sounding a victory theme and moving onto the next stage. He hands the controller over, smiling amiably. “Now, you try.”
The boy does. He struggles at first, trapping himself on multiple occasions, but with a little effort and guidance from Goro, he completes the set and cheers when it’s over. “I did it!” He beams, delighted, and Goro nods an acknowledgement.
“So you did.”
“Let’s play more,” he begs, when Goro moves to stand. Goro forces out a laugh.
“Um…” The last time he'd said no to a child bore undesirable results. “Okay, I suppose. What other games do we have on here?”
Not a lot, apparently, and Goro is familiar with neither of them save for Sokoban. He grits his teeth and allows himself to sit through an hour of this child’s ramblings, including attempts to explain the games to Goro in underdeveloped Japanese when Goro has already learned how to play and is simply exceedingly bad at it. It’s social facilitation, he thinks. It can't be anything else.
“Hey, Akechi-kun—” Mari walks into the room then, stopping promptly, glancing around with confusion in her eyes. “Ah. Where’s Chiyo?”
“Napping,” Goro answers distractedly, cursing under his breath when his ship is destroyed. The boy, Katsuo, laughs at him.
“You died.”
“I can see that.”
“She wasn’t in her room,” Mari interrupts, catching Goro’s full attention, and he shoots up out of his spot.
“What?”
Mari is saying more to him, but Goro doesn’t wait to hear it, stalking out the door in seconds and fluttering around for any sign of Chiyo. People stop him at least five times, four of them children attempting to ride his shoulders and the other by Nagisa, who asks why he looks so shaken, and when Goro asks “Where is Chiyo?” she just shrugs one shoulder.
“I saw Chiyo,” pipes up a child, and Goro whips around to face her. “In the kitchen.”
That’s all the confirmation he needs. Goro bolts in, out-of-breath, spotting Chiyo sitting at the table with tear-stained cheeks but otherwise no sign of injury. She isn’t crying at all, actually; her face is puffy with the aftereffects of it, eyes still slightly glassy, but the crayons in her hand and the color-streaked table seem to have pacified her. Goro huffs out a breath, scooping her up in his arms and ceasing her vandalism (and he wonders—wonders when was he able to do this with such ease, when it stopped being a need to maintain a distance—).
“You scared me,” he breathes, reaching into his breast pocket and handing her his notebook to doodle in. She takes it immediately, flipping to a page chock-full of notes once used for an old case but now acts as the canvas for her red crayon.
Cautiously, Goro regards her. Anything he says is usually met back with acknowledgement by Chiyo, but she hasn’t spoken much words to him in general, even after all this time. “Are you okay now? I noticed you were crying,” he tries out. She says nothing. “I’m sorry that I left you. I hope you weren’t looking for me.”
Chiyo shakes her head, which is enough. He considers slipping her some candy and is just about to do so when a voice in the kitchen startles him.
“So you’re the guy who melted Chiyo’s heart?”
Goro’s stomach drops.
“She's quite the ice princess,” the stranger continues, coming up beside Goro. He chuckles under his breath when Chiyo instantly recoils into Goro’s arms, dropping the notebook in the process. “See? She’s attached to you. But I'm glad you're here to take over for me.”
Goro can’t look back, doesn’t want to look back, for he knows if he does he’ll simply tip over, like a house of cards in an icy wind. But the man next to him is none the wiser, plucking Goro’s notebook off the floor and preparing to return it, but—
He stops, too. Gives it one long look. Drops it.
He turns his shock-slackened face in Goro’s direction.
“Akechi?” The man gapes.
And then the cards collapse, Goro’s stomach plummeting at the sight of Ren Amamiya, skin and bone and heart and staring at Goro with such a look of open betrayal that it leaves him breathless and disoriented.
“Ren,” Goro whispers, his tongue twisting in his mouth.
Ren volunteers here. Of course he does. The guy’s a wanderer, drifting from job to job to sate his endless need for unpredictability, the adrenaline rush of it all. How fortunate that he happened to select this very institution, the same one that grew Goro from a pink-faced child to a boorish adolescent. He’s almost touched at the coincidence.
“You didn’t tell me you were alive,” Ren mutters to the wall, his face taut with displeasure. He had refused to look at Goro the entire time they’d walked here, turning his face away even as he leaned against the wall in front of Goro, which—is understandable, if one has to deal with a ghost. Still, Goro is alarmed to see the blatant vexation in his features; normally he is poker-faced, defenses fully up, but now, he is weak. He is trembling.
Goro has to form the words on his tongue carefully before speaking. “I would have much rather preferred it stayed that way.” It sounds insincere coming from his mouth.
Ren leans back, chews on his lip. He gestures vaguely towards Goro’s lap. “Couldn’t you just leave her with the nurses?” he grouses.
In Goro’s arms, Chiyo blinks unsuspectingly. She’s too preoccupied with her current engagement to care about a word they’re saying (that being, fiddling with Goro’s blazer) but even without the distraction she wouldn’t be able to comprehend the gravity of their conversation anyway. Goro cradles her head against his chest.
“What’s wrong with her being here? I’m sure anything you could say to me, you could say in front of Chiyo-chan as well.”
Ren blows air through his nose, clearly uncomfortable. “Using the child to your advantage, huh?” His words are dry, grating, and Goro is immediately indignant.
He flares his nostrils. “That is not true. She’s my—”
Goro cuts himself off at once. Ren cocks a brow at him, shifting awkwardly against the wall, as if holding back from saying something unpleasant. But the words that leave his mouth are, “You’ve changed,” sounding as wistful as ever, and Goro breaks.
He shakes his head fitfully. Doesn’t hold back the tear that slips down his cheek. Chiyo notices it, wiping the tear off with her thumb and licking at it, mouth twisting at the taste. Goro runs his hand through her hair and pulls her close, confused and angry and helpless and vainly hoping that Ren can’t see how hard he’s trembling from behind Chiyo. Ren, thankfully, doesn’t say anything—but the look in his eyes reveals all.
“I… I’m sorry,” Goro hisses through a shuddered breath. “I didn’t want—”
Didn’t want what? To betray Ren, to hurt him? No, he wanted that very much—worked hard to make it happen, even smiled when it finally came to fruition—but he didn’t expect the pain that would come with it, the regret, the guilt, the turning of his stomach every time he saw something even remotely related to Ren, like a Risette poster or a black cat in an alleyway or a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, all unassuming, so, so very frustrating—
And now, five years later, it should be done with? He should forget all about it because that’s the decision he made, five years ago when he escaped from that ship, vowing to live in the shadows for the rest of life and escape the world he should have been trying to fix? Goro feels sick with disgust. He shouldn't have come, shouldn't have stuck his nose where it didn't belong, and yet…
What the hell is he supposed to do? What the hell has he been doing?
“I don’t know,” Goro says aloud. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
At that, Ren faces him fully. His eyes are wet, but aside from that, he’s unreadable. Emotions tucked carefully within. “Tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“You know what I mean.”
Goro bites his lip, all of a sudden claustrophobic. He sets Chiyo down on the seat so that he has room to stand, keeping his gaze steady on Ren, as much as he can manage, anyway.
“Do you really think, that after all that I had put you through, I’d assume you’d want to see me again?” He starts to move closer, but pulls himself back reflexively. All of Ren’s hackles are up now. Venturing any further would mean catastrophe.
“I thought you knew.” Ren’s voice is thick. “Akechi, we wanted you there.”
“To what, help you get rid of Shido and then discard me when it was over? Don’t play games with me.” Goro chokes out a laugh. “You never knew what to do with me. You just wanted me out of the way. There was never a place I could belong, not when Shido was going to kill me off once I’d outlived my usefulness. Surely you don’t think the Phantom Thieves could be that place for me? Please. I was better off dead!”
Ren pushes himself off the wall, his eyes flashing. A shiver darts down Goro’s spine, and he tries to back away, but there’s only a window behind him, caging him in when Ren leans in close enough to—
“You don’t know a thing about me,” Ren hisses, seizing Goro’s shoulders. His fingers dig in, hard; Goro winces, but Ren does not loosen his grip. He squeezes him like he expects his fingers will simply phase through, like touching a phantom, like Goro was never truly there. “Do you want to know the truth, Akechi?”
“I—I—”
“We never wanted you to die. We were angry with you, of course, but we were going to help you. We saw ourselves in you. Don’t pretend like we didn’t give a shit about you, Akechi.”
Goro grinds his teeth, his temper flaring. “Do you think I wanted your help?”
“No. Not wanted.”
“What, needed it, then? Don’t make me laugh. As if I’m nothing else but a charity case!” He shoves Ren away, retreating to the other side of the room where Ren won’t see his tears.
Ren's eyes burn into his back. “Do you think we were doing this out of pity?”
“What else?” Goro seethes, his chest heaving. “Why else would you care about a someone like me, huh? You have no use for me. There’s nothing even remotely likeable about me. You all think I’m out of my mind—”
“We don’t think—”
“It’s always ‘we’ with you!” Goro tugs at his own hair. “Why do you think you can speak for the other Phantom Thieves? Are you a hive mind? I want to know what you think, Ren.”
Ren’s silence is unsettling, like he’s on the verge of collapse. And for a brief, frightening moment, Goro feels the sadistic urge to press the wound harder. To make it bleed, weave out words that are more than those impassive affirmations, less heartfelt confessions and more a toneless news report.
But before he can say anything, Ren’s footsteps are right behind him. Closer, and closer, until he can feel Ren’s breath ghosting over his neck.
“What I think?” he says, his voice tight with irritation. “I think you’re being childish.”
“Childish?” Goro whirls around, growling, his fist raised—
But Ren catches it easily. Goro wants to feel miffed at that, really, he does, but his breath is caught and all he can do is stare with wide eyes at Ren’s razor-sharp gaze, his deep, angry flush. While he stands frozen, Ren releases his wrist and takes a step back. His face is less red now, but the fury in his expression remains.
“You hurt my friends. You tried to kill me, and you nearly succeeded. And then you tried to kill the rest of us—and once you saved the day and made us believe you were killed, you just left.” He curls his hands into fists. “How is that fair? You could have told us you were okay, or done something to let us know. It was the least you could do.” His fists clench even tighter. “You didn’t need to make us mourn. You didn’t need to make me…”
He trails off, and at the tail end of that is a hint of something watery, something akin to tears. He sounds… broken, out of breath, even. Goro is breathless along with it. He doesn’t recognize this Ren, completely out of his depth, out of his element, frenzied and fumbling for something real; Goro is the one left speechless this time.
It’s almost hard to breathe. This is wrong, he thinks. This is so—
The first sign of a sob catches them both off-guard, but the sound doesn’t come from Ren, nor is it from Goro, either. When he turns in the direction of the noise and sees Chiyo trembling, tears slipping rapidly down her cheeks, all his body goes numb.
Ice fills his veins. Without thinking, he stumbles over and hugs Chiyo to his chest, unsure if his hands are even welcome or necessary. But Chiyo doesn’t fight him, and her sobs wrack her tiny body violently while Goro holds her, stiff and powerless and undone.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, stroking her hair with shaky hands. “I’m so…”
Did he do this? Did he scare her? The sting of dejection feels nearly unfamiliar. What fucking good is he, driving everyone to tears and having nothing to show for it? He shouldn’t be here. He should leave. He should—
“Akechi,” Ren says, and Goro’s entire body jolts.
He doesn’t even have time to process the hand that is placed on his shoulder. Lifting Chiyo off of the chair, Goro turns heel and he leaves. He runs, just like he did five years ago, because it’s easier than looking at Ren the way he is, glassy-eyed and vulnerable.
It’s easier than admitting Ren Amamiya is right.
After Chiyo has calmed down a little, Goro tucks her in, pulling the blanket to her chin. He continues to stroke her hair, because physical attention is good for her. She likes it when he scratches her head, or places a hand over her forehead, or wipes crumbs from her face, and it’s the most outrageous thing he has ever experienced. But to lie and say he hates it would be doubly outrageous. He’s only calm when Chiyo is calm.
He wonders if… perhaps, he had something like this, once upon a time…
“Chiyo,” he speaks up quietly, though by now she’s already asleep. “You’re quite the troublemaker, you know that?” He pauses, as if giving her time to respond. “To think I would meet Ren like this, and in the setting of my own cursed childhood. What a predicament I’ve found myself in…”
She snores softly, and he can’t hold back a strangled laugh at that. His hands haven’t stopped shaking and his heart is lodged in his throat, but there is a small comfort in Chiyo’s even breathing, his steady caressing, even though he’s currently contemplating dying.
Ren has probably left by now. Goro can’t imagine he’d stay, after all Goro had put him through. In fact, he’s betting on the chance that he’ll never come back again, that he’ll find work somewhere else, anything to keep away from the man who had taken his heart to the compactor and crushed it to nothing. But Goro’s chest stings at the thought. He thinks, hopelessly, that he wouldn’t want that at all, that he couldn’t bear never seeing him again.
He’d done it for this long. What’s so different about now?
“I suppose I’m a troublemaker, too,” Goro murmurs, and he waits, paralyzed, for any sign that Chiyo had heard him. But there are none, and he continues unprompted.
“Do I mean anything to you? It seems all I’m good for is making people cry. Perhaps I was right in thinking the institution would be fine without me. It’s not as if Ren couldn’t do a better job than me. Or Mari-san.”
Despite his words, his stomach turns with nausea, simply entertaining the possibility of leaving Chiyo alone—and in the hands of people he barely knows. At least, with him here, he has some illusion of her safety. At least he has some control over their circumstances. There isn’t anyone to tie him down, to pull the strings to the dancing world around him. Not anymore.
But do people actually want him here?
Does Goro even belong here?
Almost mockingly, the walls close in on him. And in the deadly quiet of the room, he allows himself this brief, tender moment to cry.